For Smokey Robinson, going onstage and performing is still his favorite thing to do — “as far as work goes.”

“There’s something that happens there that I don’t get anywhere else; so that’s why I’m still doing it,” says the 72-year-old pop legend, adding, “Fortunately, now I’m in a position where I can pick and choose what I do. I go out, man, and do it for the love of it.”

Fortunately for his fans in Los Angeles, Robinson — the writer of countless familiar and timeless hits — has chosen to play the Hollywood Bowl tonight and Saturday night.

Surprisingly, it’s only the second time the singer, in his 50-year-plus career, has appeared at the venue. The first was in 2010, 50 years after he and the Miracles had their first hit, “Shop Around.”

By the time that song was released, Robinson already had been in the music business for a number of years.

“I was 16 when I started, but you couldn’t tell me that I wasn’t a man,” he says with a laugh.

In fact, producer Berry Gordy Jr. had released Robinson’s first single, “Got a Job,” in 1958 when the Miracles were still called the Matadors. The next year, Robinson would help Gordy form what would be the beginning of Motown Records and later would become a longtime executive for the company, which turned out to be a hit factory.

Robinson and the Miracles had 27 pop-soul hits at Motown between 1960 and 1972 when the singer left the group.

Among them were classics such as “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” “Mickey’s Monkey,” “Going to a Go-Go” and “I Second That Emotion,” and the singer’s high satiny voice shined on ballads like “Ooo Baby Baby,” “The Tracks of My Tears” and “The Tears of a Clown.”

Meanwhile, he was also writing hits for others — including “My Guy” for Mary Wells, “Ain’t That Peculiar” for Marvin Gaye and “The Way You Do the Things You Do” and “My Girl” for the Temptations.

Robinson says even at a young age he imagined himself a big-time songwriter, “But I don’t think that even in my wildest imagination — and Berry and I talk about this all the time — I could have imagined that Motown would have become a musical statement.

“The amazing thing is that I can be in an airport and some guy walks up to me and says. `Hey, brother Smokey, I’m from Tanzania and I love your music.”‘

(By the way, Gordy, 82, is planning to bring his life story to Broadway next year with “Motown: The Musical,” which will include Robinson along with Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson as characters.)

Robinson considers Motown a “once in a lifetime musical experience” that is unlikely to happen again for anybody because of how the record industry has changed so dramatically.

The singer says he continues to write all the time, but today “You don’t get a chance to reveal what you’re writing as much as you used to — as much as I used to.”

The artist, who is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and is a Kennedy Center honoree, does have some advice for young songwriters: “Try to write a song, because trying to write a record might make you an overnight sensation but a song will last forever.”

Robinson mentions Cole Porter, the Gershwins and Ogden Nash among his favorite songwriters and says he includes a few standards in his 2 1/2-hour-plus concert performance.

On his 2006 album, “Timeless Love,” he covered “Speak Low,” written by Nash and Kurt Weill, which is a song he had also recorded while with the Miracles on the 1962 album “I’ll Try Something New.”

Robinson, who will be backed by a six-piece band, three backup singers and two dancers, says he’s looking forward to the Bowl concerts.

“It’s a different kind of venue, man. There are people right up on you and people that you can’t even see. There’s a picnic atmosphere,” he says, adding that if he could sum up the concert in one word, it would be “fun.”

Rob Lowman began at the L.A. Daily News working in editing positions on the news side, including working on Page 1 the day the L.A. Riots began in 1992. In 1993, he made the move to features, and in 1995 became the Entertainment Editor for 15 years. He returned to writing full time in 2010. Throughout his career he has interviewed a wide range of celebrities in the arts. The list includes the likes of Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood to Kristin Stewart and Emma Stone in Hollywood; classical figures like Yo Yo Ma and Gustavo Dudamel to pop stars like Norah Jones, Milly Cyrus and Madonna; and authors such as Joseph Heller, John Irving and Lee Child. Rob has covered theater, dance and the fine arts as well as reviewing film, TV and stage. He has also covered award shows and written news stories related to the entertainment business. A longtime resident of Santa Clarita, Rob is still working on his first more-than-30-year marriage, has three grown children (all with master's degrees) and five guitars.